Re: installing static libraries (was building postgres with meson)

On 04.10.22 00:42, Andres Freund wrote:
>>> I realize that there are people for whom other considerations outweigh
>>> that, but I don't think that we should install static libraries by
>>> default. Long ago it was pretty common for configure scripts to
>>> offer --enable-shared and --enable-static options ... should we
>>> resurrect that?
>>
>> It'd be easy enough. I don't really have an opinion on whether it's worth
>> having the options. I think most packaging systems have ways of not including
>> files even if $software installs them.

Right. I think there is enough work to stabilize and synchronize the
new build system. I don't really see a need to prioritize this.

> A few questions, in case we want to do this:
>
> 1) should this affect libraries we build only as static libraries, like
> pgport, pgcommon, pgfeutils?
>
> I assume there's some extensions that build binaries with pgxs, which then
> presumably need pgport, pgcommon.

I'm not familiar with cases like this and what their expectations would be.

> 2) Would we want the option add it to autoconf and meson, or just meson?

if at all, then both

> 3) For meson, I'd be inclined to leave the static libraries in as build
> targets, but just not build and install them by default.

not sure why

> 4) Why are we installing the static libraries into libdir? Given that they're
> not versioned at all, it somehow seems pkglibdir would be more appropriate?

That's the standard file system layout. I don't think we need to
editorialize that.